Winners Don’t Look Down. They Look Up.

What I find inspiring when speaking with successful people is their ambition. I identify personally with people climbing a ladder who never actually see the top, or for lack of a better metaphor, who never stop climbing no matter the “snakes” or “slides,” if you remember that game. When I send out the opportunity for companies to reserve space for this section, it’s always my intention to hear words of wisdom gained on ladder rungs by our industry’s most successful climbers.

With the online video industry being a continuously revolving door of companies, the Streaming Media 100 list is probably the most important activity in our space on an annual basis. While the Readers’ Choice Awards are the best customer sounding board our industry will ever know, the 100 list is an activity that’s painstakingly decided by the Streaming Media team. It’s an activity where we throw what we know about who did what in the past 12 months on the boardroom table. Once that list is decided by our editorial team, I personally invite the leaders of these companies to re- serve space to enlighten us, and our readers, about how they made that list.

Being successful in our space today is not a case of being in the right place at the right time. Being successful, at least in my book, means offering something valuable and never compromising or taking shortcuts. Leading people on that road deserves acknowledgment. And with that, I can’t be more proud to introduce this year’s sponsored section “View From the Top” —self-selected submissions from the companies that made our 100 most important companies list.

Discover our 2015 list of the 100 companies doing the most interesting and innovative work in streaming video. Now in its fifth year, the list shows a new maturity, a sign of an industry coming into its own.